“My Distance Cousin De Informer”
Half way into the 80th year anniversary of my mother-in-law, my distance cousin that attended the anniversary asked that we checked out the new three star hotel tucked away in the quiets of my interior village.
In course of drinking, chatting and jabbering, he ordered a toasted fish. The order long in coming, our drinks running low, he, doing all the entertaining. He asked the youngest among us to enquire of what was holding our order.
Not long after the enquiry, in marched about five young guys that smelled officers from afar. They took their seats not far from us. Ordered drinks I don’t know who will be paying for(they are not in the habit of spending their money) and were certainly tuned into our discussions. Another look at the bunch, the odors waffting from them to me were not confusing. It was oozing officers. I was wondering where and how they knew I was there. Certainly, my distant cousin called them and how and when was the core mystry to me. He was an informer and what his assignments on me were, I don’t know then. On the bus home, he came down where to connect another to his destination and waved me bye. The manner it was rendered had hidden meanings in it. I waved back with hidden meanings of mine.
Two months later, he was the one answering questions from his same partners in conspiracy. Truly, "police is your friend" as their motto indicates.
A week before all these, we had attended the house opening of my other in-law. This my distant cousin was there with his wife and kids. Because I had concluded long ago that the guy had psychological problems those with liability in the height department have, I don’t usually pay much attention to his gambits. He kept talking with eyes to his wife instead of his mouth. Sign language is what I always associated with those averse to evil plots after all, Christ was betrayed through the same mode.
So, to me, those with such an attitude always end up hanging on a tree like Judas. I decided to pretend I wasn’t following. I must have been doing a bad work of it for he was reading my mind too. We parted with me telling him in my mind that he will certainly have a kind of imbecile among his folks these days if he continues using and interchanging organs meant for various functions. He reacted and then, it was his turn to pretend he didn’t hear me or got the message.
Then, came the last day of the year’s first quarter, he called to greet our mom while I was writing and enquiring about us and told her he just returned from Lagos. That was when I realized that the officers might be listening in and probably recording the conversation. Their other coplotter had panicked and went in search of my distant cousin and my half-sister telling them what to say when officers got wise to them. But, I got the better of them and started voicing the anomaly out. The officers behind the phone call with my mom were probably trying their best to balance the equation. So far, it has refused to balance.
Back in the year 2021, it was my half sister, the caretaker, and his police friend remembered and started mingling with her. It must have been that year they started selling possibilities of being a millionaire overnight like they sold to Judas to her. She bought what they came with and later when four tricycle riders came with guns to my building and made away with four phones, that incident was supposed to be the fulfillment of what the Chinese forwarded to the Nigerian government in the file as my trademark in prison. But the fact is that it’s the other way around. No inmate tampered with any phone, it was officers that tampered with my MP3, Oliver’s 5k dollars worth of coat and replaced it with a Chinese product of the same make that worth 200 RMB, for two years before my departure, my tampered shopping item was still being settled by the criminal department and other inmate’s shopping stored in upstairs’s lockers disappearing one by one. To think that even other officers pointed at Officer Meong as being the marauders will tell you more. Not a single inmate tampered with any officer item. It’s officers at work in inmates lockers while they work in factory. So, how Tobenna Achalugo being a highway robber and phone snatcher came from is surprising to me and other inmates. You don’t use phones in there, you shop with a card bearing your image and name while one inmate’s leader with a printed balance of prison account will eye you, and read the amount you have in your account to the cashier before he starts checking your items. That was the process then. Highly impossible to beat the security means put in place there if it’s not arranged work with officers.
Then, it was then my half-sister calling me now and then with little or nothing to say. On about four occasions, I suspected she was getting confused as to why I was not hiding with shame or maybe to know if I still circulate or to tell me they know. By then I still didn’t even know what was happening well even though I had gotten a little wise she was involved but I didn’t know with whom. I was rating her to high heavens, (master’s degree holder), so it can’t be caretaker I was rating him to lowest abyss, I suspecting it must be police for I heard and story of lodging with her in a hotel. It was when her elder brother meaning my younger brother came in spirit with two of our village guys to accuse me, saying I was the one that sent her, that I started believing well. I never knew people fix their family members for money.
"they discussed something like this before it happened?" and "I am the one that sent her?" They got wise to her again. Officers telling her, it wasn’t her or those who discussed it with her, it was my immediate younger sister who plotted and executed the theft. She turned around in relief and joined them coming after me. Magic and miracles. It was then the caretaker started saying what he discussed with her was money in our father’s account my sister collected. According to him, we are maltreating the second wife and her kids so, he is fighting for them.
Then my half-sister went and joined forces with my maternal cousin and went to officers again probably on the advice of her officer friend and the caretaker. It didn’t work, we laugh over it and life goes on. I never knew I was a bad reader of humans to that level.
But it seems as if the reward glue that holds the officer and caretaker together was getting lost. They were suspecting themselves and when the officer was plotting for me each morning and failing, he concluded it was the caretaker derailing his handiwork and burst out in anger one morning when his plans failed once again:
"If you try it again, if you don’t behave yourself, I will tell the whole world how this whole thing was carried out"
When asked to explain well later, he said he was induced by black magic and he was believed. Why not, the caretaker was believed three years earlier when he used the same line. The only thing that differs is the time it took each to recover. Police, days, caretaker, two months. It reminds me of the same situation in prison. Officer Li Di fucked up so much that when his colleagues report him to the central office, the result that returns to them is always:
"You are confused, you don't know what you are saying"
My distant cousin came to live with us when he was around five years. He started his nursery to primary six here before joining the business.
When I came back from prison and booked Thanksgiving mass, he supported me with a bag of rice and I suspect it was when the caretaker and co got to him afterward and started disturbing his family. Then, they asked him to be buying things and sending to us. He will occasionally bring soaps and lotions. Then each Christmas he will come with a bag of rice. Then, I started suspecting something was amiss when he came talking in a high voice for the caretaker and police to hear. Then it was when the officers started saying it was stolen money we asked him to keep he was buying all those things from, i know they were the one sending him. I laughed, my family doesn’t have money, but I think we can feed the caretaker and his police friend for a year without tampering with anyone’s property. It’s insulting. When some officers got wise to what the caretaker and his sect of police were up to, they went to my cousin and my half-sister asking to know who approached them the last two weeks or three, it was the caretaker putting words in their mouths again. Telling them what to say and what not to say when asked. Now, it was my elder brother in Lagos they were pointing at as being behind the theft.
This Onitsha Island officers are in their own world to be honest with you.
